Hemant Soren gets the Hooda treatment at Modi rally

Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren was booed by the crowd while sharing the stage with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Ranchi on Thursday, just two days after his Haryana counterpart Bhupinder Singh Hooda faced similar humiliation.

Soren, while addressing the crowd during Modi's maiden visit to Ranchi as PM was hooted by the gathering at Prabhat Tara Ground, which consisted mostly of BJP supporters. They kept chanting 'Modi, Modi ' even while Soren spoke.

However, unlike Hooda, Soren took a brave stand and asked the crowd to pay respect to the stage and the occasion and forget political rivalry for a day.

"Political powers keep changing; we need to respect the dignity of this stage," Soren said, which irked the crowd of about 70,000 even more and led to louder chants .

Modi was in Ranchi to inaugurate a substation of the Power Grid Corporation in the district.

The reaction of the crowd appeared to have taken the chief minister by surprise causing some errors in his speech. Soren mistakenly referred to Modi as the president at least five times.

Chavan to skip Modi meetMeanwhile Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan has decided to boycott a public function to be attended by Modi in Nagpur.

Accusing the BJP of politicising the Prime Minister’s public events ahead of assembly polls, Chavan announced that he would not attend the function on Thursday when Modi will lay the foundation stone for the Nagpur Metro network.

“I have decided not to attend the Prime Minister’s function because of the incidents that took place in recent days. As per protocol, a representative of the state government will be present at the function,”Chavan said, after a cabinet meeting, on Wednesday.

The chief minister added that as a strong reply to the BJP, the Congress-NCP government will lay the foundation stone for the Mumbai Metro’s third line in next couple of days.

However, Chavan’s cabinet colleagues were taken by surprise at his decision to boycott the function. In the run-up to the polls, the move could cause damage to the party in Vidarbha.

The BJP has reacted to the incidents saying its government gives due respect to all CMs.